That's your lot

That's as one-sided a match as you'll see until some lucky team gets to play England again. West Indies' batting was awful and their bowling soft and unthreatening. India were ice cool and, although they forgot that T20 is supposed to be entertainment, look in very good nick. Thanks for reading. Night!

India win by seven wickets

Samuels to bowl the final over, with one needed from it. Quite frankly I'm very surprised it's taken this long. Two dots to begin with... and Yuvraj gets out anyway. Suresh Raina comes out to bat and the two batsmen strike up a discussion. With one bloody run needed. Raina promptly smacks his first ball through point and that's that.

19th over: India 129-2 (Sharma 62 Yuvraj 10)

So five runs needed from 12 balls and the Indians seem to know they can play for their averages now, which feels quite incongruous with this format. A single to square leg takes India to within a boundary of their target, but Yuvraj isn't tempted, instead tucking the ball down to third man for yet another single. Is Rohit? Yep, he lofts a drive over cover, but it drops safely in front of the fielder and they're restricted to one. Another one to backward point ends the over with the scores level.

18th over: India 125-2 (Sharma 60 Yuvraj 8)

11 to win. Dear Yuvraj, please just belt a couple of sixes, yeah?

"This is a good game from India," writes Satish from Hyderabad, thankfully confirming that someone is actually reading this, "but still think they have been lucky with the toss. It will be interesting what happens if they need to set a target. No team seems sure what's a good total in these conditions."

No one belts a six. Instead they rotate the strike with four ones and a two.

17th over: India 119-2 (Sharma 56 Yuvraj 6)

I've watched several Test matches more furious and fast-paced than this. Yuvraj looks to play that pull-shot, which is one fine-lookin' shot, through mid-on again but it's cut off by Chris Gayle. Russell sends down four dots as your OBOer gets restless, before Yuvraj chips down the ground for one. Rohit knocks the final ball of the over – a juicy half-volley – through mid-on for four with the neatest of placement.

16th over: India 113-2 (Sharma 52 Yuvraj 5)

Narine bowls an absolute beauty to Yuvraj, that pitches outside leg and turns past the batsman's outside edge and off-stump both. It's a very good, if hollow, over, with two singles bookending four dot balls.

15th over: India 111-2 (Sharma 51 Yuvraj 4)

Right Yuvraj comes in in need of some runs and with 23 of them needed. He swings and misses at his first ball but then play an absolutely lovely, muscular pull off the back-foot for four through mid-on.

Wicket! Kohli b Russel 54

Aww. Kohli looks to step on the gas with a rare slog-sweep, but gets a bottom edge on to his stumps. He looks kinda annoyed about that. That's the first time I've seen him show any emotion this innings.

14th over: India 105-1 (Sharma 50 Kohli 52)

You have to love the way that Kohli gets his head, bat and feet all in line against the spinners. England's batsmen should really be watching this. Sharma gets his 50 with a flick into the on-side, perhaps not as fluid as Kohli but it's been a serene-enough knock from him.

13th over: India 101-1 (Sharma 49 Kohli 51)

With Badree finished – and with decent figures of 1-28 – the other opening bowler Santokie returns. His first ball draws a quite gorgeous square-drive from Kohli as he opens the face and times it perfectly through point for four. He's very reminiscent of Mahela Jayawardene in the way he refuses to eschew his classical, aesthetically-pleasing technique even in the shorter formats. A single glided through mid-on beings up the easiest 50 you'll ever see. A couple more of those and that's the hundred partnership.

12th over: India 92-1 (Sharma 47 Kohli 44)

It's spin from both ends as Samuels carries on. Some good work on the boundary keeps the value of a Kohli pull shot down to three. This is an incredibly impotent attack from the West Indies and Samuels' final ball is dragged far, far too short and murdered into the stands at mid-on.

9th over: India 73-1 (Sharma 35 Kohli 37)

Dear commentators: please stop banging on about the orange zone. It's the ultimate in dumbing-down. Darren Sammy brings himself on to bowl, because why not? This match was over about 13 overs into the West Indies innings. The required run-rate is already down below six-an-over before Sammy drops short on the final ball with fine-leg up and Sharma scoops him over the shoulder for four.

In probably more exciting news, it turns out I won the office predictions sweepstake yesterday. I kinda wish I'd known that before I went to the pub last night, but still, go me.

8th over: India 64-1 (Sharma 28 Kohli 35)

Narine has a shout for LBW against Kohli before realising that he'd actually knocked it to fine-leg with the middle of his bat. Four singles in possibly the most incident-free, impact-free over ever bowled in the history of T20.

7th over: India 60-1 (Sharma 26 Kohli 33)

Decent enough powerplay that for India. Unusually, Badree is taken off and replaced by Dwayne Bravo, who sends his first ball on to leg stump and is clipped for four by Kohli on the leg-side, bringing up the 50 partnership. The batsmen take a single then Rohit's cut to third man spins off of the fielder's palm and into the rope for four more. India haven't been even remotely troubled here. The commentators are discussing what the West Indies need to do to win this match, but it's such a painfully foregone conclusion that they sounds faintly ridiculous.

6th over: India 48-1 (Sharma 20 Kohli 27)

Narine comes on and drags his first delivery short. It turned a long way but was – criminally for a spinner – called a no ball. Sharma will get a free hit and deposits a wide full-toss over mid-off for a nice big 87m six. That was apparently in the orange zone, which means it's worth six runs rather than the six you get for being in the yellow zone, or the six for the red zone. Hope that clarifies the Indian broadcaster's six categorisation. Ten from the over and I reckon Narine's length is a bit shoddy there: too short on most of them plus a rank full toss.

5th over: India 38-1 (Sharma 13 Kohli 25)

Darren Sammy likes to bowl Badree through at the start of an innings and it looks like that's what he's going to do here. Sharma steps down the track to his third ball and drives fluently over the top over cover, with the spin, for another boundary. Badree responds by dropping shorter and is cut away for another pleasing-looking four. This is going to be pretty quick and painless, I imagine. These two batsmen are both lovely to watch.

4th over: India 28-1 (Sharma 4 Kohli 24)

Santokie continues and Kohli works him for a well-run two. Is there any finer all-round batsman – by which I mean across all formats – than Kohli right now? He gets another boundary here as Santokie strays on to leg stump and is tucked around the corner for four... and the next ball is identical, getting identical treatment. The ball makes such a lovely, soft sound off of Kohli's bat, doesn't it?

"India is playing and you are getting no emails?!" writes Robert Wilson. "The 20/20 World Cup is a roaring success, isn't it. Of course, it could just be you."

That's the ICC World T20 to you and I, Robert. But thanks for cheering me up. Sigh.

3rd over: India 17-1 (Sharma 3 Kohli 14)

Ugh. A rank full-toss from Badree is slog-swept for a one-bounce four to mid-on by Kohli. The next ball is better but so is the shot: Kohli rocking back and lofting it over the same region for six! Badree comes back well though, beating the wonderful batsman with the next couple of balls, before said batsman works a single to mid-on. A single for Sharma ends an over that brought twelve runs.

2nd over: India 5-1 (Sharma 2 Kohli 3)

Krishmar Santokie, who looks about nine years old, is on now to bowl his medium-paced left-arm seamers. He's got a low, slingy action albeit not as low nor as slingy as Malinga. He's finding a bit of swing here but the Indian right-handers don't seem too troubled. He finds the edge of Kohli's bat but it was played with soft hands and dropped safely into the ground.

On the wicket, Hawkeye actually says it pitched outside leg stump by a fraction, so that's a very poor decision.

1st over: India 2-1 (Sharma 1 Kohli 1)

Right 130 is the target after all. As I said, leg-spinner Badree is opening the bowling and Rohit gets off the mark with a single to square leg. There's a slip in place for Dhawan, who's not in the best of form and struggled early against Hafeez and Ajmal, and indeed he's been done in here. Kohli comes to the crease early then. Unlucky for Dhawan as that was definitely missing; it actually pitched on middle and leg and was turning to leg.

Wicket! Dhawan lbw b Badree 0

Dhawan struggled early against spin against Pakistan and has missed a leg-break here. It pitched on middle on a good length, but looked to be turning down leg to me. Richard Illingworth has given him though.

So unlike Jurassic Park, it looks like the velociraptors will win the day. There's a heck of a lot resting on the shoulders of Badree and Narine, the former of whom will open the bowling here. I'm not convinced that the Windies' support spinners are good enough to keep India tied up. They're having a discussion in the middle over what the actual score is; the scoreboard is saying the target is actually 131. We'll let you know what they decide.

India will chase 130 to win

Think of that as a statement of fact. As in, it will happen. The West Indies were appalling – it was as if they went out to have a look at the bowling and lost track of time. Credit has to go to India's spinners though, whose variety of tweaks and twirls were far too clever for any of the West Indian batsmen to read. Amit Mishra and Ravi Ashwin, in particular, were outstanding.

20th over: West Indies 129-7 (Narine 7 Ramdin 0)

After a wicket from the first ball, Narine comes out but is off strike as the batsmen crossed. Simmons flat-bats a big six over cow corner, then slog-sweeps another slightly straighter. I'm surprised the spinner is bowling the final over ahead of the excellent Kumar, but Simmons is restricted to just two sixes before he has to walk. It's not paying off mind, as Narine now launches a six over mid-wicket, making it three sixes and two wides from a poor over. The last is driven for one, making it 21 from what was a rare decent over for the West Indies.

Wicket! Russell c Kohli b Jadeja 7

19th over: West Indies 108-5 (Russell 7 Simmons 15)

This is a bit like going to an Eric Clapton concert and hearing the acoustic version of Layla. It's technically very impressive, from India's spinners, but what you really want is those huge, kick-ass cheesy riffs. He keeps it to two from the penultimate over and finishes with figures of 2-18 to follow his 2-32 against Pakistan. That's a quite brilliant spell from Mishra.

18th over: West Indies 106-5 (Russell 6 Simmons 14)

I'm not entirely sure who this game appeals to: T20 fans who like the spectacular, or actual cricket fans? Because there's not a lot in this for either. Simmons is out off the final ball in a near-identical manner to Sammy, but after an eternity of replays it transpires that Jadeja overstepped and Andre Russell will get a free hit, which he deposits into the stands for six.

Wicket! Sammy c Sharma b Jadeja 11

17th over: West Indies 96-4 (Sammy 11 Simmons 11)

Dhoni goes back to Shami, who is now free from having to face a Gayle onslaught. He pitches his first one a little bit fuller than he did in his first spell and it's a pea roller, squirting under Simmons' waft and going through to Dhoni. Another drop, this time by Sharma diving at mid-on to his left. He got both hands to the ball and that's a poor drop, Sammy punishing him for it with a deft, Lara-lite cut to the third man boundary. "Do they think they're playing a Test match?" asks my colleague Tom Bryant, before Sammy lofts the ball over mid-off for a one-bounce four.

16th over: West Indies 83-4 (Sammy 1 Simmons 10)

Simmons slams Jadeja down the ground for a four that couldn't be less pressure-relieving if it had been a six-tonne weight sat on Darren Sammy's chest. That's the only boundary of the over; three singles the remainder of the entertainment.

15th over: West Indies 76-4 (Simmons 3 Sammy 1)

Simmons, knowing he needs to do something, top-edges a wafty slog-sweep just short of the fielder in the deep, before Samuels is stumped and Bravo lost at sea. Mishra doesn't get the hat-trick as Sammy pushes for a single. It's yet another fantastic over, although the quiet of the crowd suggests strangulation by spin isn't really what they expect of their T20.

Wicket! Samuels st Dhoni b Mishra 18

Lovely classic spin bowling again from Mishra, similar to that against Pakistan in the first game. He draws Samuels down the track then drifts it away from his outside edge and Dhoni completes the job.

14th over: West Indies 72-2 (Samuels 9 Simmons 0)

It's going to be a big ask for the West Indies to set a competitive total here. Samuels hits just the second boundary in 35 balls straight down the ground then hits a cover drive for four more off the final ball. Ten off the over, but even if they maintain that rate from here it'll only get them to 132.

13th over: West Indies 62-2 (Samuels 9 Simmons 0)

Mishra is coming back, looking to tempt Gayle into the big hit. Gayle took rather a liking to Mishra's last over and he looks to launch to googly over cow corner, but can't time it and the ball drops inches in front of the diving Kohli! This is great bowling from India and the final ball brings a run out!

Wicket! Gayle (run out) 34

That's the big one and a crisis for the West Indies! Samuels looked to take a single to backward point that was never on and Gayle was run out by a mile, ambling down the track. That's poor cricket from the batting team.

12th over: West Indies 59-1 (Samuels 9 Gayle 31)

MS Dhoni is going to bowl Ashwin through here and why wouldn't he? Gayle simply can't get him away here, although you have to applaud the Indians' ground fielding if not their catching. He does send down another wide though, the seventh of the innings by my count, but that's the only negative of their performance so far. Oh no and no sooner have I praised India's ground fielding that Shami fumbles the ball on to the boundary rope from Samuels' cover drive.

11th over: West Indies 51-1 (Samuels 4 Gayle 29)

Evidently it's not just India's batsmen who are clinically efficient. But then you know what else is clinical and efficient? Microsoft Excel. That's exactly how entertaining this is. The West Indies bring up their 50, or rather have it brought up for them, with a pair of wides. Gayle is looking visibly frustrated out there, although I can't tell if it's at the lack of boundaries or at the indignity of having to actually run singles.

9th over: West Indies 41-1 (Samuels 1 Gayle 24)

Raina replaces Mishra, the offie on for the leggie, for his first bowl of the tournament. Gayle takes a single from the first ball, but the West Indies need to kick on rather quickly now as another over brings just three.

8th over: West Indies 38-1 (Samuels 0 Gayle 22)

Ashwin will be mighty relieved to see Gayle simply tuck a bad full-toss away for one off his pads, although less so to see another top-edge from Smith go over Dhoni's shoulder and trickle down to the rope straight behind him. The wicket comes as great relief as it ends a woefully scratchy innings from Smith, bringing Samuels to the crease.

7th over: West Indies 33-0 (Smith 7 Gayle 21)

As the Rolling Stones totally sang, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, yeah it's Mishra, child. Gayle launches his first ball for a mighty straight six, but then top-edges the next... and Yuvraj drops it at square leg! It's just gone straight through his hands, that's terrible. Now Smith gets in on the act, top-edging a sweep and seeing it land safe.

Gayle should have been caught twice now, although the chance in this over was far simpler than the first. Farcical stuff and nine runs from the over.

6th over: West Indies 24-0 (Smith 6 Gayle 13)

Call me Nostrodamus, here's the man formerly known as "R", Ravi Ashwin. Gayle clips him beautifully off his pads for what looks to be a boundary but is well cut-off by Dhawan; they run two but one of them is called short by the umpire. I reckon that there must be a fair old number of short runs that are never picked up on, no? Smith gets his first boundary with a sweep to fine-leg as Ashwin gets his doosra from around the wicket all wrong. Only six from the over mind, so it's a good one from Ashwin, completing a fantastic powerplay for India.

5th over: West Indies 18-0 (Smith 2 Gayle 11)

Very un-Dhoni-esque captaincy here as he gives Kumar a third straight over, although after the shape he got to consistently beat Smith's outside edge in the last one, why wouldn't he? I can't imagine he'll do the same with Shami, mind. A leg-bye and then a single to Gayle, who is more circumspect with Dhoni standing up to the seamer. Kumar has Smith in all kinds of trouble here; the right-hander is on two from 18 balls. It's another brilliant one from Kumar and I'd be tempted to bowl him through here.

4th over: West Indies 16-0 (Smith 2 Gayle 10)

Short again from Shami and down the leg-side again from Shami. Oh here we go: Gayle stands around and knocks a couple of dot balls away before picking the fourth ball to walk down the track and loft it 81m over mid-on for a six too cool to warrant an exclamation mark. The fifth ball is rifled along the floor through the same region for four more as he gives himself room outside leg. Gayle's career strike rate after facing 30 balls is a frankly terrifying 191.

3rd over: West Indies 5-0 (Smith 2 Gayle 0)

Ooh a close one here as Kumar gets one to swing the other way and cut Smith in two, just passing over the stumps. There's a lot of movement on offer here for the seamers and you wonder if maybe Shami should have been bowling a similar length to Kumar here? The West Indies still not going for and you imagine that if the openers do fail now it puts a lot of undue pressure on the middle order. Brilliant over this, with just a wide coming from it.

2nd over: West Indies 4-0 (Smith 2 Gayle 0)

What's this? It'll be seam from both ends as Shami comes in and tucks up Smith with a bouncer into the ribs that the batsmen can't connect with as he looks to pull. He tries again with the second ball but Dernbachs it down the leg-side. And again when he gets another go on account of the wide. Couple of freebies there for the Windies. It takes until the fourth ball for Smith to connect with a pull, but that's fielded on the fine-leg boundary so it's just a single. Then excitement as Gayle is dropped! He has a big heave, looking to launch a length ball over long-off but it's edged on to the fingertips of the leaping Ashwin at slip, who flicks it up above his head and no one can grab the rebound!

1st over: West Indies 1-0 (Smith 1 Gayle 0)

Finally, we're underway, although we're in luck with the delay as it's given Gary Naylor the time to tweet me before play begins. Cutting it close there, Gary. Kumar opens the bowling and immediately finds some movement through the air, getting it to swing away from Smith's outside edge. The next ball brings a massive mow from Smith, but he gets nowhere near it as Kumar again finds prodigious out-swing. Ooh I think that's a nick off the third ball but it's bobbled along the ground to Dhoni. In Smith and Gayle you have two patient batsmen who are happy to have a look at the ball before really going for it and it's just a single from the first over.

Oof

@guardian_sport@DanLucas86 Sorry could not watch another game from 20/20 circus. Noisy rabble, comm poor, spectators manic, degrades game

No worries, Colin, I'll watch it for you. Just stick here and we'll have bad jokes and pop culture references to ease you through it.

Oddly actually, I've not hated any of the cheap plastic gimmicky stuff here: the kooky camera angles and the flashing stumps. The latter I reckon actually help umpires on tight run-out calls. I find the best thing to do is think of this as a completely separate game to cricket: it's Bat Out of Hell to Test cricket's Kid A.

Exciting music news

Nope, not Kate Bush. Following hot on the heels of Prince, whom I missed because I was working here, Ocean Colour Scene are going to be playing Guardian Towers in June. I remember seeing them when I was 17. Yes they're still going, and tempting me into an awful nostalgia trip. I have no shame.

Calling this one

I thought India v Pakistan was going to be a hard one to predict, but this is impossible I reckon. It's essentially an IPL all-stars contest out there, two of the very best T20 sides around. I'll stick my neck out and go with the West Indies as India's seamers don't convince me. Not a particularly bold one, I know.

The following preamble contains spoilers from 1993

Afternoon folks. In Steven Spielberg's movie adaptation of Jurassic Park (once described by my aunt as a "cult film") there is a scene in which Bob Peck's woefully underarmed park gamekeeper Robert Muldoon is hunted and eaten by velociraptors as he himself is looking to pick them off. The velociraptor is a cool, viciously efficient pack hunter; the viewer – and, you suspect, Muldoon himself – knows that the fatal strike is coming, but you have no idea where from and his inevitable death could lurk anywhere.

In Friday's opening match of this competition, it felt a little like Pakistan's bowlers were hunted down and eviscerated by an Indian team of cricketing velociraptors. After some excellent spin bowling, most notably from leggie Amit Mishra, the Pakistani batsmen sent their bowlers out into the park/field armed with a paltry 130 to defend themselves and, although you didn't know which of India's stellar top seven was going to use his bat like the raptor's rapier claw and slice through the target, it was always coming.

In the end it was Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli who knocked off the runs with ease, but India's top order is packed with batsmen who have near-identikit techniques, ideally suited to chasing down pretty much any conceivable T20 target. You would imagine that ruthless efficiency will once again be the order of the day for MS Dhoni.

But just a moment. We should probably also consider what happened at the end of that movie, because the West Indies have their very own proverbial t-rex returning to the ranks today. One imagines that had Chris Gayle been playing in England's recent limited-overs-series in the Caribbean then interest from this side of the Atlantic would have immediately doubled. You can keep yer Brendon McCullums, yer Virender Sehwags and yer David Warners: Gayle is a massive, fearsome batsman who is not only capable of wreaking untold destruction on economy rates, but, you feel, likely to. If India's batting lineup wields several rapiers, then the West Indies' has that great big sword out of Game of Thrones.

Not that it's all about Chris (a man so cool and so awesome that I'm going to refer to him by his first name just so that I can pretend I'm friends with him) for the West Indies today. Sunil Narine and Samuel Badree are two of the best bowlers around in this format and if they're at their very best today then even India – probably the best players of spin around – will find scoring tough in these conditions. Against England they were the dilophosaurus, leaving Stuart Broad's batsmen blinded and scrambling in the mud like Newman from Seinfeld. If they can restrict India to around 140 or so today I'd wager that the defending champions, with the not-inconsiderable additional talents of Dwayne Smith, the Bravos, Darren Sammy and Marlon Samuels at their beck and call, will fancy their chances of feasting on the carcass.

Preamble

Dan will be here shortly before the start of play with the latest team news as West Indies set about defending their title. In the meantime, here's Vic Marks on the Netherlands' six blitz against Ireland.

Inspired by Stephan Myburgh, who hit 63 from 23 balls, and Tom Cooper (45 from 15), a controversial late inclusion to their squad, the Netherlands cracked a record 19 sixes in their innings and even then they only qualified for the second round with three balls to spare.

Their prize after such an astounding victory is an unexpected journey to Chittagong to join the rest of the Super 10's Group 1. On this form they may fancy their chances of emulating their famous win over England at Lord's in the opening World T20 match of 2009.

Friday's mathematics were a little complicated except for the Irish, who knew that all they had to do was to win in order to qualify. The equation for the Netherlands was not quite so straightforward: they knew that they had to score the 190 required for victory over Ireland in 14.2 overs in order to get ahead of the net run rate of Zimbabwe, who had beaten the UAE earlier in the day.

As their captain, Peter Borren, who helped to launch the innings with a quickfire 31, observed afterwards "there was nothing to lose", and when today's T20s cricketers play in that vein they are dangerous.